DER Documentary

Stone Dream

This film touches the sensitive issue of national and ethnic identity in Taiwan. In the first Taiwanese observational documentary, “Liu Pi-Chia,” made by Director Chen Yao-Chi in 1965, the main character Liu Pi-Chia was press-ganged into the army in China and came over to Taiwan with President Chiang Kai-Shek. After several decades, the director Hu Tai-Li unexpectedly met Liu in a village on the banks of the Mukua River. This new immigrant village consists of mainland veterans whose wives are from different ethnic groups, mostly Aborigines. Stones, the most important symbols of this film, link Liu Pi-Chia’s generation, who worked hard on the stony riverbed to reclaim land, and the new generation of Liu Pi-Chia’s son, whose interest is collecting rose stones for artistic and economic purposes. Liu Pi-Chia and his family are like rose stones, which are black and unattractive on the outside, but cut open or polished, reveal wonderful scenes. This film, accompanied by classical Chinese lute music, presents the flow of stone dream.